


ghosts, ghosts everywhere

by hypophrenia



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: 77th class - Freeform, 78th class - Freeform, Gen, High School, Minor Explicit Language, Reincarnation, Spoilers, a whole lotta characters but they aren't referred to by name, third fic yay, what did you expect from junko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 03:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11981151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypophrenia/pseuds/hypophrenia
Summary: The soldier looks at her like she sees a ghost. It's not something new for Junko, but she still wonders why.





	ghosts, ghosts everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> alright we're talking junko right? so some cussing but there's like. three bad words. also i wrote this in two days and it's very messy, but argueably it's focused on junko's perspective, and junko has messy, cluttered thoughts. so there.
> 
> also spoilers. so much spoilers. granted i don't outright say it but there's still spoilers. tread carefully.

New year, new me. Junko likes to take that literally, changing up her personality in bits every single year of school. 

This year is no different. It’s her third year of high school, but she wants to make it extra special. Should she go for the average nice girl with a twist, or something a little more egotistical?

She’s had plenty of time to decide, but after a long while of contemplation she throws the thought out the window and decides to see how it turns out in the end. Maybe she’ll go for someone nicer this year. 

Or maybe she could be a heinous bitch. Either really works; Junko giggles at the prospect of meeting her new classmates. People were so fun at first, but after a while they grew dull and boring. Maybe all the people in her classes this year were going to have a longer lifespan and prove to be more fun to toy with.

Of course, the moment she sits down in the very back, as far away from the revered main character seat as possible (because she’s always hated main characters and their ignorantly hopeful outlooks), there’s rumors of a new transfer student, which is why the teacher’s late.

_How cliche_ , Junko thinks. But she doesn’t care one bit. Okay, she does. But it’s not like it’ll affect her, unless the transfer student was some optimistic, happy-go-lucky fool. Then maybe she’d be extremely annoyed. Perhaps she’d even resort to bullying—how so incredibly uncharacteristic of Junko, who had undergone serious, very gloomy personalities the past two years of high school.

Or not. She is a bitch after all, and she’s saying it quite seriously.

The door opens and the transfer student makes her way in. Dark hair, freckles, flat chest...there’s nothing remarkable about her.

“Class, this is Mukuro Ikusaba. She’ll be joining us today, albeit a bit late.”

When Mukuro’s eyes sweep across the room (across Sayaka and Leon, Chihiro, Oowada, and Ishimaru, to even Celestia and Oogami), they’re the eyes of a soldier. Or maybe not, Junko’s never seen one. She decides to imagine the transfer student is one, a soldier from a mercenary group who’s taken it upon themselves to murder someone in her class. And maybe it’d be her; what a joy that’d be!

The soldier looks at her like she sees a ghost. It’s not something new for Junko, but she still wonders why.

When Junko looks back, Mukuro flinches and looks away. 

She gets seated in the main character seat. How predictable.

\--- 

The first time someone gave her a weird look was when she was in her first year of high school. A third year at the time was walking home from school, and their eyes met.

It wasn’t love at first sight (boring, overused), but something more...hopeless? Maybe that wasn’t exactly what it was, but there was a certain word for the way his eyes bored into hers.

Matsuda Yasuke, she learned his name was. A cold, stoic, and emotionless person who was headed straight for the best college in the area. To be a neurologist, perhaps, something for people with brains.

Well, it wasn’t like Junko was dumb. She was smart, to the point where she made a point to be deceptive, to seem like the thoughtless, mindless, brainless fashionista of the school. And maybe she was the most alluring, even compared to the school idol Sayaka or the cute Chihiro, but certainly the one with the most sexual prowess. 

And if Junko ever did anything _that_ slutty, well, nobody would know.

\--- 

The transfer student flinches whenever Junko raises her voice. It seemed like she just disliked loud noises at first, but when she could listen to the gunshots that just happened to be set off in the area, she didn’t make a single movement. Which furthered Junko’s soldier fantasy, yes, but it also narrowed down why exactly Mukuro flinched whenever she heard Junko.

It seems to only be Junko that sets her off. She does catch Mukuro staring after a first year and the girl accompanying him, but it seems to be some sort of small crush. 

The first year. Boring, annoyingly optimistic, completely and utterly average. She can see this with a single glance, like how she can read almost anyone. It scares her sometimes, how her mind works faster than she can ever keep up, but Junko will never admit this to anyone, not even herself. She’s not scared of her own intelligence, she uses it. So she’ll never be anything less than strong.

Though recently, she’s been getting more looks her way. Many are from the band of first years that stick together like blood clots. Or the two bands, now that she takes a second look. Both led by the most average people her mind can conjuncture; both have brown hair and greenish brown eyes and the same stare.

Well, the stare’s not average. They’re both harsh and critical, though only to Junko. She’s not dumb, she can see the shift they get when they turn from her to their friends. While the male with greener eyes and a taller figure has an entire mob that sticks with him, the tinier one that seems to rely too much on his female friend only has a handful. She can count them on one finger; a male that’s been held back for a year or two, the star swimmer of the school team, a writer who's had a book published already, a boy with a wealthy family and a sharp tongue, and a girl from a line of detectives.

They all seem so closely knit too, like they share some huge secret. Maybe they’re all out to get her; that doesn’t sound so bad. Maybe it’s even brings anguish to her that they all know something she doesn’t. Or maybe anguish isn’t the right word after all. 

When she stumbles across Mukuro talking with them, well, it brings more ideas to the table.

Perhaps they were conspiring against her? Maybe they really did want to kill her—now _that_ would prove interesting. Or maybe they were part of some secret agency that operated under the shadows, or something along those lines.

They’re all bundled in a classroom; the entire class, the plain boy’s companions, and Mukuro herself. She does see plain boy’s friends stare at people in her class sometimes.

She stops walking in the hallways after school when she happens on their merry group; now she takes a closer look, there’s a few second years around. Like the friends of the tall, white haired student council president; a girl famous for her cheery attitude, and a boy that got into too many fistfights. 

Maybe the plain boy has a special thing for attracting colorful characters. She sees the second year rumored to already be working at one of the best pharmaceuticals in the state, the prized confectioner who ran out a neighboring bakery with her creations, and her boyfriend, who helps his family run a metalworking shop.

Mukuro freezes when she sees Junko standing in the open doorway, and Junko grins, playing with a strand of her strawberry blond hair.

The rest turn to see her too, and they all form the same deer-in-headlights expression, which would be cute and interesting to look into, if Junko could only figure out why. She’s never met them before, after all, even though their expressions show a little hint of distress, if that’s even the word for it.

“Hey,” she says, and many of them look on the verge of cringing. Not because Junko has a terrible voice, of course, just because they don’t seem to like her.

Junko’s no stranger to people disliking her. Just the other day, a girl (college student, maybe?) playing on a gameboy stopped just by her and gave her a dirty glare. Which wasn’t saying much, since the girl seemed as soft as cotton candy, but it was still something. And to have a horde of underclassmen disliking her, well, that was a little out of nowhere.

“Enoshima, right?” the plain boy asks, and Junko notices the distaste in his voice when her name rolls through. She’s never had anyone hate her that much before; maybe this year will be interesting after all.

“Yes. Have we met?” Junko flashes a sickly sweet smile, and the plain boy’s friends stiffen. They seem to dislike her the most, though the student council president’s companions seem like a close second.

“No.” Well, by the plain boy’s tone of voice it doesn’t seem like it. Perhaps they did meet, and Junko just doesn’t remember. That sounds about right.

She turns and leaves right then and there, but for the rest of the night all she can think about are the eyes of the group boring into her. There’s so much hate there that Junko wonders if she really did anything to them, because if she did then she would remember. But she doesn’t, so nothing makes much sense anymore. It’s a good thing Junko’s always liked situations without hope, because they send her heart beating and her stomach turning in a particularly special way.

It’s addictive, that feeling. Junko still can’t put a name to it yet.

\--- 

A little while later, she encounters yet another person. This time, they have long black hair and reddish brown eyes.

Their facial shape is so similar to the other plain boy (the tall boy, then) she thinks they’re him for a moment. But then again, their face is so emotionless Junko wonders if the tall boy and the emotionless boy can even be considered the same person.

Their eyes bore into her and immediately she thinks _sociopath_. Caring for no one but themselves… Well, why exactly does she know that about him?

It’s like how her mind screams that his hair should be longer, and that he shouldn’t really exist, not when tall boy’s around. But her mind also tells her that they’ve never met before. Then their eyes meet.

He looks at her like he has the missing puzzle piece to her, to her strange cognition and intelligence and the dreams she can’t remember save for distant screaming, crying, and the feeling of blood on her hands, filling her vision. And Junko grits her teeth because it’s a feeling she’s not used to, knowing less about her own situation.

“What’s your name?” she asks. The boy is quiet before he responds.

“Hinata Hajime.” Junko represses the _wrong, wrong, all wrong in her mind_.

“No, it’s not.” She doesn’t know where that came from. She can read people like a child’s book and she knows he’s telling the truth, maybe partially but still some truth, but it’s not true. Not to her.

“No, it’s not,” he agrees. “I am Kamukura Izuru.” And this time Junko thinks it’s real enough, that the sociopath is Kamukura and he’s somehow testing her.

But she won’t say anything that might betray anything about her feelings, because she’s always been on top of everything. She’s always the one in control, even if the people grouped together in a small little classroom on the outskirts of the building know something she doesn’t. And even if the sociopath’s dead fish eyes glint with knowledge, she’ll never say anything.

She sneers at him, who doesn’t react (of course he doesn’t, why would he—) and Junko spins around on her heels and marches away.

\--- 

The group (the hopesters, she’ll call them) are always on her mind. It’s the hope they have, yes, but also the distaste and hatred they had for her. They look at her like she’s killed them and destroyed their family.

If Junko did that, she would remember, because it would be such a desolately obsolete thing to bring to people. To crush their hopes and dreams and joy. It does sound like something Junko would do, ruin lives and all that, but Junko never did so. 

Maybe they just don’t like her. That’s not an elaborate enough reason for her fanciful imagination, but it’s the only thing she can think of. Such hatred, and no reason behind it. 

It’s not a bad feeling whenever she sees tall boy or plain boy shoot her that oddly specific glare. They probably spit venom about her and dirty talk her and everything short of really doing anything to her. It brings goosebumps to her skin, but good goosebumps. Being hated is such an exhilarating feeling. She wants them to hate her more, despise her with a stronger passion.

They’re so strange. Maybe it was Junko all along, and she miraculously lost her memories of the event. Maybe they’ve found a reason too plain for her to comprehend. 

Or maybe in a past life she was a diabolical overlord who set waste to the members of plain boy’s friend group that don’t seem to be there, and destroyed the lives of the hopesters.

It’s not a logical thought, but it entertains her fantasy. If she was in that kind of position, she would’ve killed herself in an elaborate way, just to go out with a bang and have fireworks accompanying her. It would have to be a special execution.

The next time she comes across the hopesters, she smiles and waves. They look kind of shocked—well, some don’t. Some look like they expected it all along, to see her acknowledge their hatred and still grin cheerily.

There’s a word for the kind of emptiness in their eyes, even behind their hopeful sparks. There’s a darkness lingering, from memories long gone. Junko can’t really say what—it’s on the tip of her tongue, and what was it again? Despair?


End file.
